Humility is the first thing that comes to mind when we think about Todd Fliehmann. Todd runs Swallow Hill Jersey Dairy and last week he walked us through his farm and introduced us to the cows that make the milk for our retail shops.

Todd started milking cows in high school and immediately began putting more thought into better ways to do it. His grandfather and father milked Holsteins but Todd worked his way into Jersey cows after some analysis on taste and efficiency of the cow. His process starts before most of us even thinking about being awake and continues until late in the evening keeping his cows on a happy, regular schedule. Evidently, his cows are on such a tight schedule that even daylight savings time throws them for a loop. The cows on Todd’s land seem to have as much grazing area as they could want and are smart enough to even start lining up when it’s dinner time.

Swallow Hill is almost completely vertically integrated allowing most of the food the cows consume to be grown and harvested from the farm itself. This admittedly keeps the number of cows on the farm capped at a certain number but provides a platform for higher quality from the cows, allows for consistency in feed, keeps feed pricing volatility out of the equation and makes for a manageable work load for Todd. The transparency of the farm blew us away when we could see a list of the exact cows that were milked for our milk delivery earlier in the week as well as the milk fat percentage analyzed to the 0.1 percent. Being able to get our milk within thirty six hours of the cows being milked and actually seeing the production information for each cow involved was truly special for our retail development team.

From the honor system milk purchasing shed at the entrance of the farm to the precisely monitored pasteurization system, Swallow Hill exudes a sense of purpose and authenticity and perfectly aligns with our quality oriented approach to sourcing raw ingredients. Most will never get to see the daily work of Swallow Hill Jersey Diary, but we hope that when you step into our shops and purchase a milk based drink you’ll be able to taste the attention to detail and care in the process. If you do get to visit the farm, we hope you get “mom’s chocolate chip cookies” like we did.

The trek up to the processing building

The bottling room

The milking room

Todd Fliehmann

Todd Fliehmann

The "cow horse"

Jon in the milking room

The milking schedule

One of the new additions to the herd

The cows involved in the production run our milk came from and the volume obtained from each cow

We’re pretty picky about how coffee is stored and honestly it’s pretty easy. There are a few ways people store coffee that we’ve encountered over the years and several of them are big no no’s, so we figured we’d share with you quickly how we do it and why.
The basic fact to know is that roasted coffee has two enemies: oxygen and light. When you by coffee from us you’ll notice that it’s stored in a smaller bag that has a degassing valve and doesn’t allow any light in. The degassing valve allows pressure out of the bag as fresh coffee degasses after being roasted. This makes sure the sealed bag won’t explode but doesn’t allow air back into the bag so the coffee stays fresh. The non-transparent package functions primarily to keep the light out. Using it up quickly will also obviously help keep it fresh. This is primarily why we do twelve-ounce bags for the retail size packages instead of a full pound; it allows you to use it up a little faster thus keeping your coffee supply fresh.

So after you open your fresh bag of coffee the easiest and best way to store it is to just roll down the bag as tight as you can, clip it in some way to keep it closed, use it quickly and you should be good. It’s that easy. Glass jar? No. Freezer? NO WAY. Vacuum seal? That’s up to you. The key is to just seal it up and use it quickly. Now you’re one small step closer to brewing better coffee at home. So go to your friend’s freezer, grab that coffee and throw it out. But make sure to bring them some fresh coffee to ease the blow.

Medium Deeper Roots roast on the left. Very dark, unnamed coffee giant roast on the right. Note oil migration and see some of the coffees have even exploded a bit on the dark roast... no good!

We know. You like “bold”, dark coffees. That’s ok! But we want to give you a little ammo for next time you head out to buy a dark roasted coffee and debunk a common myth about the roast level of coffees.

The main myth we want to debunk is: “Coffee is better when you can see the oils on the bean.”

As coffee is roasted, the cell structure of the bean undergoes significant change. Different chemical reactions occur to bring out or subdue certain flavor compounds depending on what the roaster is trying to accomplish. As coffee is roasted darker and darker, the cell structure of the bean starts to break down and allow those flavor compounds, contained in oils, to migrate to the outside of the bean. So, in medium to light roasts, you wont see these oils on the bean because the cell structure is still mostly in tact and keeping those flavor-containing oils safe inside the bean. The problem with having these oils on the outside of the bean is that they are exposed to air and immediately start to oxidize. Think about the time you left a glass of water on the counter overnight and tried to drink it the next day or even two days after. The water tastes old and stale due to oxidation from exposure to air. The same thing happens to the oils on the outside of the bean and immediately makes them start to taste old and stale. So if you’ve been told that seeing oil on the bean correlates to more flavor, now you know that’s not true! However, the problem still remains that you want to buy a fresh coffee that doesn’t taste oxidized but still gives you the boldness you want. We suggest you investigate what “bold” means to you whether it be dark chocolate, smoky, thick body, etc and try to find a little bit lighter roasted coffees that fit those descriptions. We suggest some African coffee origins such as Malawi and Tanzania and Asian origins such as Sumatra and Sulawesi. Though these origins don’t always display these flavor characteristics, they often do and are a great place to start looking. We know that the answer isn’t always a light roast so we offer a blend called Losantiville. It’s the darkest roast we offer and it’s on the darker side of medium roast allowing the oils to stay in the bean but still allow for a smoky, full body, dark chocolate taste experience. The important part is to find coffees roasted to the point where YOU are the one extracting those oils when you brew and are still able to taste what you like. Now that you know a little bit more, drink up!